The Ritual of Blood and Bone

Chapter One

Hungry.

Run.

Sing.

Run.

Mate.

Feed.

Hungry.

So hungry.

Feed me.

Run.

Run!

RUN!

You can't escape us, Seraphina.

Seraphina gasps and opens her eyes. For a few seconds, she forgets where she is and her heart thunders in her chest from confused panic.

"Seraphina, what's wrong?" Calla asks, quickly dropping to her knees and pulling Seraphina's trembling body into her tight embrace.

Seraphina can't form words to explain what she just heard. She is used to the random impulses of the thoughts from animals; impulses which she can interpret into the right words for them. It had started like that. But then the impulses changed, and soon whispers began to fill her mind. She shudders as she remembers those wicked, scratchy voices.

You can't escape us.

Tears sting Seraphina's eyes and she grips Calla's dirty red shirt tightly.

"I heard, voices, Calla," she finally whispers, and pulls herself away to look up into Calla's dark brown eyes.

"Voices?" Calla asks.

"Yes," Seraphina gulps.

"Animals don't think in words or voices though," she frowns. "Are there people in the woods?"

Seraphina shakes her head and stands up slowly, still clinging to Calla so she doesn't fall on her unsteady feet.

"No, Calla," she whispers, her eyes stinging with tears as she looks upon the sharp, twisted, black mountains that make a terrifying wall on the horizon.

"They came from in there."

Calla stands too and takes a step closer to the edge of the cliff which they stand upon. She twists the loose stands of the colourful pink and red head scarf that she wears to keep her thick dreadlocks from falling around her face and shoulders.

Calla lets out a long breath and slowly scans the forest. "It was bound to happen," she eventually says, turning back around to Seraphina. She smiles warmly and puts her hands on Seraphina's upper arms, giving them a reassuring squeeze. "In a way, this is a good thing," she states.

Seraphina raises an eyebrow and Calla chuckles deeply.

"It means your powers are getting stronger, Phina," she says and gently puts her hand on Seraphina's cheek, wiping away a tear with her thumb.

"But Calla, the voices-"

"Are from creatures locked behind the wall, where they belong," Calla assures her. She sighs and takes hold of Seraphina's hand before pulling her to the edge of the cliff.

"Perhaps I should take you up onto the wall," Calla says.

"What? Why?" Seraphina gasps. In all her years with Calla, the one rule that her adoptive mother has strictly enforced was to stay away from The Claw.

"So you can see for yourself what's beyond," Calla continues.

"I don't think I want to," Seraphina replies.